Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche

Hall Family The whole tree of Hall descendants gets pretty damn Malthusian pretty damn quickly. I've left out the last layer, because I am not 100% sure of the names of everyone's children. Help would be appreciated. Just sent me the missing information by email, or post your email on the blog or the information.  Arthur and Rosalie Connie, Philip, John, Frank Connie and Jack Rosemary, Barbara, Ian Philip and Mary Peter, Colin, Susan John and Betty and Nola David, Tony, Micheal, John Frank and Febe Lucille, Alan Rosemary and Tom Brenda, Pam, Robert Barbara and Ken Andrew, Timothy Ian and Jenny Duncan, Alan, Peter Peter and Sheila Philip, Nicky, Bon Colin and Diana Steven Sue and Kobie Colin Jackie, Mary-Anne David and Felicity Steven, Nicky, Martin, Patrick Tony and Eve Philip, Andy, Chris Michael and Dallis Michael, Dylan, Chris John and Linda Mark, Douglas, Kerry Alan and Elsa Arthur, Katherine Lucille ...

PALESTINE BROADCASTING SERVICE Mr. Artur Steinhardt, c/o Rosenthal, 25, Alfasi Road, Rehavia, Jerusalem Department of Post and Telegraphs Palestine Broadcasting Service Telephone No. 4388 No. B.S.2/1467 Queen Melisande's Way Jerusalem 3rd April, 1941 Dear Mr Steinhardt, The American Consulate have received the following telegram from the American Near East Foundation in Athens. "PLEASE EXTEND CONGRATULATIONS PALESTINE BROADCASTING COMPANY EXCELLENT ANALYSIS BULGARIAN SITUATION LAST NIGHT WOULD APPRECIATE SENDING COPY OUR OFFICE NEW YORK ALSO COPY LEGATION FOR US HERE." The Consulate here have asked us, accordingly, to send them two copies of your talk, one to go to Athens and the other to New York. Wem of course, consider it highly gratifying to know not that that your talk was heard in Athens, but that it was much appreciated, and I am sure you will also feel extremely please with this tribute to your work. We are willing - and indeed anxious - t...

Listed Reporter to leave [From the Star in February 1964 (?)] Staff reporter Mr. TONY HALL , a young journalist who has been "listed" under the Supression of Communism Act , plans to leave South Africa at the end of this week. Mr Hall, 27, is the first reporter on a South African daily newspaper to be listed [banned] It means that he may no longer work for any publication in this country. When Mr. Hall was first warned, last September, that his name was to be added to a list of ex-members and active supporters of the now-banned Congress of Democrats, he protested to the Deparment of Justice. LIVELIHOOD "I asked for reasons and pointed out that I would be forced to give up my job and would lose my livelyhood." he said yesterday. I was simply told that I had attended certain meetings and demonstrations. But the question of my career being wrecked was ignored." The father of three small children, Mr. Hall received his final notice last week t...

How Eve and Tony Hall got their British passports.     I left my home country, South Africa , in February 1964, on a British passport. On page 3 was a stamp which said: "Permanent Depareture" in South African officialdom's misspelt English. I was looking forward to Nairobi and my new job there, so it surprised me to find my eyes filling with tears as the BOAC comet listed off the runway of Jan Smuts airport. Perhaps it was the strain of taking such a long hard look at sights I knew I wouldn't see again for a very long time. My wife Eve and our three sons, Philip , Andrew and Christopher were to join me a month later in the capital of newly independent Kenya, once I had settled as a reporter on the Daily Nation. We got our passports with remarkable speed, considering Eve and I were both down on the local political blacklist. Though I did just qualify for British Citizenship through my geologist grandfather who had  gone out to settle in Pretoria afte...

 Shahid Afridi, the great slugger The sun hid behind clouds, turning them orange blue.  Next to the fridge, on the terrace, was a clean white table with 3 jugs of mango juice on it and a tray of half-filled glasses. I was playing cricket with my cousins. I held the bat as tightly as I could. Everyone was in position staring at me. Ali lined up: "Are you ready to face the best bowler in town"  he shouted. I laughed, but my confidence was fading. He looked at me: "Ready?" I nodded, and looked at my Dad who was smiling and holding a camera in his hand. He gave me the thumbs up and began to film. Ali signalled to my brother to go and stand next to me. Then he started running towards the crease, picking up speed. He shouted:  " Here comes the typhoon". I closed my eyes and swung the bat as fast and as hard as I could ...and hit something with a crack. I looked u...

Peat Bog Soldiers Far and wide as the eye can wander, Heath and bog are everywhere. Not a bird sings out to cheer us. Oaks are standing gaunt and bare. We are the peat bog soldiers, Marching with our spades to the moor. We are the peat bog soldiers, Marching with our spades to the moor. Up and down the guards are marching, No one, no one can get through. Flight would mean a sure death facing, Guns and barbed wire block our view. We are the peat bog soldiers, Marching with our spades to the moor. We are the peat bog soldiers, Marching with our spades to the moor. But for us there is no complaining, Winter will in time be past. One day we shall rise rejoicing. Homeland, dear, you're mine at last. No more the peat bog soldiers Will march with our spades to the moor. No more the peat bog soldiers Will march with our spades to the moor. The words were written by Johann Esser (a miner) and Wolfgang Langhoff (an actor); the music w...

March 3rd 1974 [Nairobi] My Darling To, Got your very welcome cable, yesterday, a nice warm one! I wonder where you are, Love, and whether your plans have altered at all; can't imaging that the BP team were able to arrive on time, and hope that doesn't mean you'll be home later than planned. Remember, you said March 16th? Your Italian Princess dropped by on Wednesday evening (phased me rather by refusing to come in after I'd said you were still away but that I was your wife. "No, no, I just came to see Tony." She said. Ah well.) and on the off chance that you'd be in Addis (though I didn't think so, or you'd surely have phoned) I gave her a quicky for you. Am longing to hear your voice and wishe you would phone. I've been frantically busy; not aided and abetted by having Mara here, on heat. Couldn't refuse to take her, but feel it's a slight imposition. Inger came back with Finn, on Wednesday, which was great. The doctors ...

From M.A. Hall c/o SCC Juba Sudan Monday afternoon 1973(4) Eve Hall, Oxfam, Box 40680, Nairobi, Kenya My Sweetheart, I'm sitting on a campbed - it feels luxurious! back at the SCC 'camp' in Juba. Got in a couple of hours ago after a really rough ride in a truck for four hours in all. I'd hoped to come yesterday but in the morning as I was all ready and packed when a group of men with a gun walked by the mission house carrying an elephant's tail (bracelets!). The marksman was the local resettlement officer. He had shot an elephant in the bush a couple of miles away. A few minutes later all the workers went rushing past, some carrying spears, each with a newly sharpened knife - elephant meat! So we all joined them - tramped about 2 miles through 8ft high elephant grass, jumping through lines of flame. The bush is set on fire to clear it this time of year. But the search was in vain, though I saw one live elephant a few hundred yards away. By the ti...

Aunty Connie was grandfather John's older sister, (as some of you probably know). She was also the first women lawyer in South Africa and a very decent human being. She was married to Uncle Jack. She hadn't seen Dad (Tony Hall) her nephew and Mom for the 26 years while they were in exile. We saw Uncle Jack and Aunty Connie when we visited them in Pretoria in 1972 and then again in 1975. It's a funny feeling to realise you have a large family after having lived in such a reduced family unit for many years. Uncle Jack and Auntie Connie presided over a large gathering of their clans on both occasions. Tea and sandwiches and cakes on the lawn. Very nice people. And it's not just the cake talking. I think Connie was about 94 when she wrote this note, making a few mistakes on the type writer as she did so. Like me she was interested in preserving all branches of her family history. 7.8.91 My Dearest Tony and Eve, IT IS UNDOUBTEDLY A GREAT FEELING THAT YOU ARE AT LONG LAST BA...

Devil's Dyke, Brigton, Photo by Jon S. Page March 3rd 1978 Darling Mom and Dad, I should be starting work; it's 9.30 am, I've just put the sheets in the washing machine, and now I should be diligently launching into research proposal number 5001...well, that's what it feels like. But I feel like chatting to you for a while instead, so I will. Until I know one way or the other about Kenya (which I should do in the next couple of days). I find it difficult to do anything but sit at my desk and contemplate the distant Downs , and look for signs of buds on trees. The sun's shining today, and some crocuses have have suddenly appeared in our "rockery" ; so, in spite of the gloomy forecasts by those idiot weathermen. I think spring is here and I long to throw myself into real work. I'm sick of this waiting game. It's a rather insane situation actually, ODM is really keen, have got one of their people at the High Commission in Nairobi, deal...

Dad writing from the Ascot Hotel in Bombey (Mumbai) [Of course if I come across any things said that are too personal in Mom and Dad's letters or that may cause offence - very little of that - then I will not publish them on this blog. Of course these letters were written in confidence, not for publication, and I hope you will read them in that spirit.] Ascot Hotel, Bombay Friday night 7th (or 6th? my watch is funny) My Sweetheart, The telex came not long after I posted your letter yesterday. I was more than half expecting the bloody thing, but that didn't make it any better. PJ [ Oxfam's Philip Jackson] had a whole paragraph apologising and explaining why it is important but that didn't help either. If I wasn't so sure this assignment is good for our future the way it's working out, I'd blow the thing and come home for the feel and sight and sound of you. And every day is a day of Phil's holiday I'm missing. Sometimes I really wonder about this b...

Gulbarga fort mosque (Photo by Louayg ) As a soft dusk fell, we went to the Gulbarga mosque; 600 years old and very beautiful, huge and clean, old paving cool on bare feet, rich tombs hung with reds and golds and outside, white washed walls. But nowhere is woman's inferiority more brutally demonstrated than here; the few women there prayed in the open courtyards, are not allowed inside. In one tomb/mosque, men prayed and filed past the draped sarcophagus while the women crowded round the little grilles in the walls to peer inside. These oppressed women, made to feel themselves so little when they do so much, when their lives are so completely dedicated to other people, they stand there with their hideous veils thrown back over their heads as they watch, then down it comes again, the iron mask. How did women ever allow themselves to be so used and abused? And the beggars came crowding round...now I've really heard beggars whine. ......................................... Top o...

[Reading this letter that Mom wrote to her parents a month after getting out of jail is upsetting. Poor Mom. What on Earth is she apologising for? How absolutely insensitive of Grandpa (and Granny?) to have a go at her when she was so vulnerable.] 21st-6-1963 Darling Mom and Dad, Darlings, Aunty has gown me the letter where you wrote so angrily about me. I agree I have not written enough, but I have written three times since I got out of jail. One I sent three weeks ago, one seven days ago, and I can only say, if you have not received them them, that my mail must have been stopped and that they might come later, or even not at all. I sent all letter cards with my name at the back, that might have been the trouble. In the second letter I told you that the money you sent us was used for a wonderful 4 days with the children in the game reserve, and if you do not get it then I thank you again very, very much, and believe me I really am sorry! I also told you that I have had a bladder infe...

There are so many taboos, so much ignorance about food. Villagers sell eggs (for about 20 paise a dozen) and never give their children one. But with that money they'll buy their children a couple of biscuits because that's a status symbol. Pawpaws are bursting with vitamins, but no woman will eat one because they're considered "abortive". In fact, eating green pawpaw can cause an abortion. a bad one that ulcerates the womb. But not ripe pawpaws. When people have colds they don't drink anything cold and avoid lime-juice (a cheap fruit here); i.e. they avoid a cheap source of vitamin C. A very common vegetable called a "drumstick" is high in calcium content and its leaves full of vitamins, but its taboo for pregnant women and children. Eggs, meat and fish are supposed to increase bleeding -- so mothers who have just given birth are forbidden them; no protein, again when they need it most. Even in good years, infants are badly nourished. As soon as the ...

If you take a stand then watch out. It may not matter what you actually do or say it will matter what you are supposed to h ave done and said. How your words are twisted, how your image is twisted and put to use. Mandela was a revolutionary. Mandela with Joe Slovo and Chris Hani who was later assasinated. The power of PR is a weapon of political and psychological warfare. People may be co-opted without even noticing it. The core objective of all the rum and butter flattery of Mandela: The flattery of Hollywood, the opposition in South Africa, reactionary governments around the world, and the bourgeoisie media, is to neuter him as a symbol of revolutionary change. The Mandela doll politics of the opposition in South Africa, where they both vaunt him and manipulate his historical significance at the same time are insulting. Mandela has aligned himself with Zuma, Mandela is an long standing ally of the South African Communist Party. Blade Mzimande makes the point c learly in...

By Eve Hall We left Poona at about 5am and drove into the sunrise. The dawn came up like thunder but the straight road lined with Banyan trees had such a hypnotic effect I kept dozing off. Drove for hours through moonlike country. The road is also lined with drab men and women cracking stones --part of the millions doing the same building relief work all over Maharashtra State. The intention may be mobilising, and even the result -- but not the actual labour. Because of the drought and relief work, India has already reached its 1974 target for roads. There were more men than women working on this stretch. The cattle is hideously bony. Women wear sombre sarees here -- maroon, dark purple, olive green, dark red. Men all wear white turned to dun., but huge and brilliant turbans in red or yellow -- the only splash of colour, even the red on the painted horns of the bullocks had faded. Sholapur At the Hindustani Christian Church Mission here we met Stina Larssen, who runs three village feed...

Clint Eastwood tries to turn history into mush. Clint Eastwood presents Mandela as a conciliator and ultimately the exonerater of the supporters of Apartheid. Is Mandela happy with this image? The reasons why the western media has attacked, and will continue to attack Jacob Zuma , centre around the ridiculous identity politics of the soft left in Britain , hollowed out of all socialism: lacking any coherent philosophy of social justice and brimming with empty-headed market oriented opportunism. The western media approved of Mandela's overly conciliatory beginnings after his release in 1990 and saw its reflection in the policies of Thabo Mbeki's government. Mandela should speak out against Invictus' distortion of history and reject his over-flattering portrayal, one that reduces the whole of the liberation struggle of the ANC, from the time the ANC was founded in 1912, to the "Christ-like" actions of one individual. History has plenty of people who made grea...